


four dreams in a row

by theneonpineapple



Series: chapter in the desert [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast), The Adventure Zone: Amnesty (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death Fix, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Magic, Necromancy, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 22:11:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18508099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theneonpineapple/pseuds/theneonpineapple
Summary: I don't really blame you for being dead but you can't have your sweater back.Ned gets arrested. Aubrey does Big Magic. Someone comes back.





	four dreams in a row

**Author's Note:**

> [the fray's "how to save a life" plays]
> 
> WHAT'S UP GAMERS??? I'm writing divergent au's off my own canon compliant fic series in order to bring Boyd back so uhhhh here's my OC Leta she used to be in the Pine Guard, she can do cool sylph magic, and she owes Mama a favor.
> 
> This whole thing is gonna get jossed in the next couple of HOURS and i do not care i live here now.
> 
> Some more notes: uhhhhhhh i'm dying. i'm dead. i want boyd back. i've spent the last WEEK freaking out and i've been planning this fic since before i heard the episode so this is where we're at.
> 
> title and quote in summary from richard siken's "straw house, straw dog" bc i'm gay and sad and never shut up about crush

Sheriff Owens walked in and Ned plastered on his best Pillar Of The Community expression as he went to greet him. "Sheriff! Welcome, welcome to the Cryptonomica, what can I do for you today?"

Owens looked even less inclined to tolerate Ned than usual. Which was saying something. Zeke rubbed at his forehead. “I just… Guess it was my mistake, but I honestly didn’t think you were capable of something like this, Ned.”

“I mean, capable is - anyone’s capable of anything, right? Under dire enough circumstances?”

“What circumstances were dire enough for you to kill someone?”

Ned stopped short, all the grand lies he was prepared to spin bitten off in shock. “Kill someone?”

“Please don’t insult my intelligence, Ned.”

He knows about the fire. But that was impossible - unless Boyd had told him about the fire before leaving town. The bastard.

“I don’t think you’re much of a flight risk, but I do have to cuff you, and I’d really rather you didn’t make a scene. We understand each other?”

“Don’t tell Aubrey,” Ned said.

Zeke sighed. He unclipped his handcuffs off his belt. “It’s Kepler, Ned,” he said. “I give it a few hours before she knows.”

“I have to be the one who tells her,” said Ned. He could explain.

“Put your hands behind your back,” said Zeke.

“Are we sure this has to be an ordeal?” Ned asked. He’d gone a very, very long time without being handcuffed - well, not by a cop. He didn’t really want that to change.

“I have to do his by the book. Hands behind your back.”

Ned grumbled a little, but obeyed.

“I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Boyd Mosche. You have the right to remain silent. Anything--”

But Ned’s ears were ringing, like they had after he crashed into the sign, in the seconds between impact and the first wave of pain - like his body knew something the rest of his brain hadn’t quite caught onto yet.

“--can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney.”

“Wait,” said Ned. “Wait, no.”

“Ned--” The Sheriff just sounded tired.

“Boyd’s dead?”

* * *

> _Boyd is dead._
> 
> _Boyd is dead and they think I killed him._

* * *

Aubrey came rushing into the sheriff’s office, and Dewey moved to stop her. “Hey, you can’t just barge in!”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Get out of my way, Dewey.”

“No! You need to wait here until--”

She sighed and pushed forward, passing right through his shoulder she went past him. “Sorry, Dewey!”

He squawked something about spectral boundaries as she stormed down the hall to the Sheriff’s office, threw it open, and yelled, “You’ve got the wrong man!”

The office was empty.

She turned around, hiding her embarrassment with more anger. “Where is he?”

“He’s in the interrogation room, talking to - wait, Aubrey, don’t--”

But she was already wheeling around and headed straight back to the interrogation room. “I need to talk to y--”

Inside, Zeke was sitting on one side of an table. But instead of the dramatic scene of Ned, looking demoralized handcuffed to a metal table, it was Duck, with a cup of coffee, in his uniform.

Aubrey gasped. “How could you!”

“Aw, hell, Aubrey,” sighed Duck. “I told him I didn’t think Ned did it.”

“Did you tell him--”

“That neither of you can account for Ned’s whereabouts?” Zeke asked. “Yes, he did.”

“It’s not like I can lie.”

Aubrey glared at Zeke. “You know what Ned does for this town, and you know there are monsters running around killing people!”

“A monster that’s been biting people,” said Zeke.

“A monster that's been manipulating people,” Aubrey shot back. “You talk a big game about being our ally, Zeke, but you took a day or two to consider whether or not to trust us and then turned around and arrested Ned? For murdering some dude from out of town?”

“The evidence against him looks pretty bad. Aubrey. They weren’t strangers.”

“What?”

Duck rubs the back of his neck. “It kinda looks like maybe they worked together when Ned was… uh. Y’know.”

“Shit,” said Aubrey. Then, “Shit, he knew the guy? Why has no one told me any of this? Dammit, Duck, I had to find out from Jake.”

“Ned asked me not to tell you,” Zeke said.

Aubrey folded her arms. “Well, Ned’s a dumbass, we knew that already. I want to talk to him.”

“Aubrey--”

“I want to talk to Ned.”

* * *

> _Boyd was dead the whole time I was in his hotel room oh fuck—_

* * *

Ned wouldn’t talk.

For six months Aubrey had known Ned and she’d never seen him this quiet. Even when he’d woken up in the hospital he’d been chatty. Weird, but chatty.

Now he was quiet and she was terrified.

“Hey,” she said.

He'd smiled, fake as anything. “Aubrey! What brings you here to my…” he sighed. “Cell?”

Cell. Not lackluster accommodations. Not my new temporary residence courtesy of the fine town of Kepler, West Virginia. Cell.

“I know you didn't kill that guy,” she said firmly. “I'm gonna help you prove it. Duck said you guys used to do crime together?”

Ned plucked at some lint on his sleeve. “He was my business partner, once,” he evaded.

Her eyes narrowed. “Your partner, or your partner?”

“It never ends well to mix business with pleasure,” he said.

“That's not a no. Okay. So he's your ex, and you used to do crime together. Did he have any enemies?”

“I don't know. I haven't seen him in years.”

“Did you know he was in town?”

“... Until recently. I hadn't seen him in years until recently.”

“When did he come to town?”

“I don't know. I didn't ask.”

She didn't like this at all. “Ned… Why didn't you tell us?”

He looked at her. “Do you tell me everything, Aubrey? About your past? We all have our secrets.”

She thought about the fire and swallowed. She hadn't told Ned. Does he know - no, there was no way. He'd been unconscious when she told Mama. “Okay. Okay. But I'm not currently in jail for murder, Ned. Can't you tell me what happened so I can help you prove it?”

He was silent.

“Can you at least tell me a convincing lie?”

That got a bit of a smile. “Not much point if you know it’s a lie.”

“Ned, it had to be the shapeshifter, just - we need something.”

He nodded. “Yeah. It was the shapeshifter. So how about you just… go kill the shapeshifter, and I’ll stay here, and maybe, I don’t know, there’s a way to tell who it killed.”

“Okay…” She looked at him. Like, really looked. “Ned, this old partner of yours--”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Aubrey,” he said.

Aubrey swallowed back half a dozen arguments. "Okay," she said. "Okay."

* * *

>   _I don't remember going in three times._
> 
> _It must have been the shifter._
> 
> _It must've worn my face._

* * *

 

“We can fix it, Mama, I know we can.”

“And how’s that?”

“Well, since Dewey, and… something I can’t tell you about, and also me finding that book, I’ve been doing a bunch of research in my library and I’ve been looking at this one spell in particular.”

“Zone of Truth?”

Aubrey waved that off. “It’s called Resurrection.”

Mama actually did a spit take. Shit, she'd needed that paperwork. But more importantly - “ _Aubrey Little I know you are not suggesting necromancy right now!_ ”

“It makes sense!”

“Explain to me how in any world that makes sense.”

“We bring him back, that's not murder anymore, not really! And he can tell us that Ned didn't kill him, and maybe he even has information on the shapeshifter. He can explain and prove it's not Ned!"

"What's your arithmetic for the statue and the laptop?" Mama asked.

"Ned can explain, I know he can!"

"Aubrey…" Said Mama. "Look, I can tell when you're not telling me everything. What's going on?"

She bit her lip. "It's something I can't really tell you about."

"Is it dangerous? Is Ned in trouble?" The man was a pain in her ass but Aubrey's expression was making her think maybe there was somehting she didn't know about the man, something that would have Aubrey looking this concerned. Was Aubrey keeping Pine Guard business from her? Damn, she wished she'd told them about Thacker immediately. She'd set a bad precedent with secret keeping around here.

Aubrey shook her head. "No, no, it's not that kind of bad, it's just. Mama, I think he might've been in love with this guy. He seems to be grieving."

"Aw, hell," said Mama.

"And maybe – I have more warning for this than I did for Dewey, maybe I can do a better job this time!"

"You did something that was by all knowledge impossible," Mama reminded her. "It don't get much better than that."

"Yes, but. Dewey's a ghost. Maybe – I don’t know how ready my magic is, but I could try – if I healed the body _first_ —"

Mama could feel the niggling of an idea. A truly terrible idea, probably. And she said, "What if you had help?"

* * *

>   _Did it still have my face when it killed him?_
> 
> _Did he believe it?_
> 
> _Boyd died thinking it was my hands on him._
> 
> _And why wouldn't he?_
> 
> _I had been so fucking angry at him for everything._

* * *

 Duck had some reservations.

One, weird sylph lady.

Two, spooky magic shit.

Three, _really_ pushing their luck with the Sheriff.

But mostly the weird sylph lady doin' spooky magic shit. Leta had met Aubrey once, apparently, by way of grabbing her by the collar. Then she'd had some sort of meeting with Barclay and Mama, and then she'd left in a bit of a state, marching back out and almost bowling over Agent Stern when he tried to talk to her. Duck had gotten the full story, complete with wild speculation, from Aubrey over one of the semi-regular Pine Guard dinners.

Not _exactly_ how he wanted to go about making allies, but then, their last sylph ally had just made ominous phone calls, so it was kind of a thing, apparently.

"Some of the oldest magic, and in some theories all magic, is magic of binding. A curse is simply binding misfortune to someone – healing is simply binding together what was torn – summoning is simply binding an object to a different place. And that is what this spell does."

"Huh," said Aubrey. Her mismatched eyes were wide as she looked up at Leta. "So what do we do?"

"There is something that humans called miasma. A corruption which hangs around the bodies of the dead - those who died violently, or young, or who were not given proper burial. It hangs there, like fog hangs here in the forest while the sun is not yet over the mountains. That miasma is... It can be bound to people."

"Okay, I don't think you need to teach her how to curse anyone," Mama said.

Aubrey turned to look at Mama. "Curse?"

"Binding miasma to someone does them harm," said Leta. "She is correct. There is no need to worry, Ma—Mama, I am simply illustrating the mobility of the miasma."

"So... Miasma can move around. How's that help us?"

"If I gather together the miasma produced by the death of Boyd Mosche, I can bind it together. Miasma is energy, just like anything else, and the energy created by his death will resonate at the same frequency as the energy which was the spark of his life."

"His... Soul?" She tried the word out.

"To some extent. Now, finding it is one thing. But to bring the spark back is a different matter entirely."

"It's not more binding?" Duck asked.

Leta turned to look at him. Her disguise had dark eyes, deep set, and full of something Duck didn't entirely wanna confront. "It is," she said slowly. "It draws it in with the bonds which already exist, and then binds it there."

"And that's why you need Ned," he said.

She smiled, wide and kinda flat. "That is why I need Edmund Chicane. If he has a bond to this man, he can bring him back."

"Now, I gotta pitch this to the Sheriff so he'll give me both Ned and the… y'know, body," he said. "And he's gonna ask me about risks, and side effects."

"All magic has a price. But there should not be any immediate harm to anymore but myself, Aubrey, and Edmund Chicane."

"And that's a risk I'm willing to take," Aubrey said quickly.

"And you're sure you know what you're doin'?"

"Trust me. This is not my first – what is the thing with the cows and the men?" She asked Mama.

"Rodeo," said Mama, immediately. And then, "Wait, _what_?"

"Thank you, yes. This is not my first rodeo, Duck Newton."

Mama was staring at Leta now, though. "What do you mean this ain't – tell me you didn't."

Leta seemed to realize she'd said… something, though Duck still wasn't sure what. "I had to try," she said, gazing at the table, for once not making unsettling amounts of eye contact.

"You tried to bring him back and you never told me? You never told any of us?"

"Bring who back?" Aubrey asked.

"I would have told you if I had succeeded."

"We were a team – we were a hell of a lot more than a team – and you didn't think it germaine to mention you tried to resurrect Mike?"

"It was after I left," said Leta.

Mama looked absolutely _furious_ – and then she just slumped back. And she looked. Tired. Sad. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, that makes sense."

Mike. The name was ringing a bell.

"That's the guy who died fighting the fire abomination," Aubrey said.

Duck snapped his fingers. "That's it," he said. "That's where I've heard the name. Aw, hell, you knew him?"

"Yes," said Leta. "I knew him. I thought he and I had a bond strong enough that I could bring him back to me, but I was. Mistaken. Or perhaps just incapable. But I have seen with my own two eyes what Aubrey Little is capable of – creating a ghost from a _human_ – and you can tell your Sheriff that if there is anyone who can do this. It is us."

He sighed. "I mean, I'll fuckin' try."

* * *

>   _I told him I never wanted to see him again._
> 
> _I meant it._
> 
> _I didn't._
> 
> _I don't._
> 
> _It promised me I would never see him again._
> 
> _I didn't tell him that._
> 
> _That wasn't Boyd._

* * *

 "You want me to what."

"I want you to bring Ned and also the body to the Lodge so we can bring the dead guy back to life so he can prove Ned's innocence. Mama has a… friend, who also does magic, like Aubrey, and they can do seriously crazy magic, but they need the body and also Ned."

Zeke pinched the bridge of his nose. "Besides being illegal, and breaking the chain of evidence, and ruining any chance I have at taking this to trial. Y'all could get rid of the body and let Ned escape. Also, I don't want a horde of freakin' zombies—"

"No zombies. I asked. And if he did become a zombie, I think Beacon can definitely kill a zombie. That's like a Tuesday for the bloodthirsty lil bastard, he'd love it."

"Duck, I need you to understand. This is the strongest case I can possibly imagine against Ned. You say he left the Lodge, and won't give me more details about why—"

"We don't know, exactly, well, we kinda know? But it's possible he didn't do that. We just don't know completely. And he won't say. But we don't know. We'd tell you if we – wait, no."

"Yeah, you see, that doesn't fill me with confidence, Duck."

"I know," said Duck.

"We have video of him entering the hotel room, multiple times. And Mosche not coming out. Given the timeline, he was _definitely_ killed before Ned left – and he cleared out a safety deposit box Mosche had taken out at the bank. Which he says was filled with his stuff that Mosche had stolen. I talked to Boyd's public defender—"

"You did?"

"She says Boyd refused to turn Ned in. He wouldn't even acknowledge he had a partner, and when pressed, he told the prosecution he didn't know the guy's name – but every one of his part arrests had been with another man for years, and according to the lawyer the first thing he said when he woke up was _Ned_ – Duck, I think Ned was there the night Boyd killed that woman."

"I know, and I hear you, I just."

"You can't trust him," Zeke said.

And something flashed in Duck's eyes. "Now listen here," he said. "You know a lot more than I do about what Ned mighta done years ago. But I've known Ned for years, and I've literally risked my life alongside him a few times. And yeah, he might be a coward, but so am I, and the man has saved my life a few times. He didn't have to join the Pine Guard. He didn't have to do any of this. And I know you ain't got the rosiest view of us but dammit, we have been trying. And what's more, I know that Ned told you the truth. Before _any_ of this happened, he tried to tell you."

Zeke exhaled. Because. Yeah. He'd been thinking a lot about that. About Ned telling him, and Zeke not believing him. About what Calvin had said about monsters. After the whole… revelation, before the big summit meeting, he'd gone home and just hugged Calvin. And then he hadn't slept a wink thinking about Keith's friends, dead. Gregor, dead. Dewey, now a fuckin' specter and still reporting to work, cheerful as ever. People he might've been able to save if he'd been working with the Pine Guard sooner.

"Okay," he said. "Okay."

"So you'll do it?"

"Yeah. I will. But Duck, understand this, I'm trusting you."

"You can trust me," said Duck.

"And I'm coming with."

* * *

>   _Even if they resurrect him he'll still think it was me._
> 
> _I still have to tell Aubrey._
> 
> _Maybe it's better if they think I killed him._
> 
> _It fucking figures._
> 
> _Just like the bastard to ruin my life from beyond the grave._

* * *

 There was a body on the table in the Infurmary, mangled, and Aubrey was trying not to freak out about the whole thing.

“I’ve never healed a dead body before,” Leta said, her tone thoughtful. “It was a very clever idea, Aubrey Little.”

“Thanks,” Aubrey said, eyeing the body. “Hey, can we just - uh, do it, maybe? Before I start freaking out?”

Leta smiled. “Of course.”

She laid her hands on either side of the pale, still face of Boyd Mosche.

“What do you ask the magic for?” Aubrey asks.

“Hm?”

“Janelle says you ask the magic, that it’s all about how you ask and visualize it, how do you do it?”

“The body remembers. I only restore it to a state where it can. Sometimes there’s transference.”

“Transference?”

“She means there’s a chance that if she does this it’ll snap her neck, instead,” said Mama, shortly. Brusquely.

Aubrey shivered. “That’s… How do I stop that?”

“You cannot. It is a risk I am undertaking. Life and limb for the Pine Guard.”

“Leta.”

“I apologize, Mad--”

“ _Leta_.”

“Of course,” said Leta. She turned back to Aubrey, her cloudy eyes glittering. “I return the body to its previous state,” she explained. “This… might take more restoration than usual.”

Aubrey watched, fascinated, as she closed her eyes. There was no glowing light, no elemental flash of fire or stirring of wind. The sound of a vertebrae repairing itself was almost as violent as one breaking, and Boyd’s skin crept from the same pallid, mottled shade as Leta’s and towards softer, pinker.

He could almost be sleeping. Or freshly dead.

Leta stepped back, and her eyes were unfocused.

Mama leaned forward. “Leta--”

“It did not want to remember,” she said. “There was a great deal of damage. His cells… He’ll be violently ill, if he wakes, until they flush the poison they made away again. But the blow that killed him has been reversed.”

Aubrey felt kinda sick, but it was nothing compared to how Mama looked: ashen, and tired, and devastated. Like someone had just died. Or like she’d just run through a lot of someones who could’ve come back instead.

“I’m guessin’ sometimes they’re too far gone.”

Oh, right. Mike had been burned up by the fire abomination.

“Sometimes there isn’t enough body left to remember,” said Leta. “I asked the space where he’d been before to fill the interstices and it… made an attempt.”

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“I was not well.”

“I’m… gonna go get Ned,” said Aubrey. She hadn’t wanted him to see the body like _that_ , and as much as she didn’t want to be alone for this awkward little moment, she was still glad she hadn’t let him. There was enough grief in this room.

* * *

>   _Boyd is dead._
> 
> _I want him back._

* * *

 Aubrey kept asking him, _you remember what you need to do?_ And he'd be annoyed if it weren't the only thing keeping him from running screaming right about now.

Boyd didn't look dead. He was just a little too still, a little too stiff. Ned wondered what he'd looked like before Leta had healed what killed him – and then regretted thinking about it. Ned wasn't squeamish but he didn't want to think about what the creature had done to him.

Leta had pulled him aside, earlier, when Zeke had brought him in.

"Do you love him?" She'd asked.

The question had startled him. It was blunt. Not even curious.

"Well, I mean," he'd said. "No. Of course not. He ruined my life. He's the worst. He made me steal from Mama and then he went and got himself killed and—"

"The ritual will not work without a profound connection between you and him," she said. You will have to call him back to the world. You will have to call him back to you. There are words you have to say that will save him and I cannot help you with the words because they are known only to the people who love them the most. If you don't care for him then this ritual is doomed. Am I wasting my time, Edmund Chicane?"

"...No."

"Good!" She'd said. "I have owned Madeline Cobb this favor for decades. It will be nice to wipe the slate clean."

"What's going to happen in there, exactly?"

"It won't be pleasant," she said.

And it wasn't. It was like plunging into that swimming pool again, except this time Leta touched his forehead and then he was falling and then he was standing in the shores of what looked like a lake.

He couldn't see the edges of it, but the water was too still, and he felt too confined. It didn't feel like an ocean. It felt like – _Erie, at night, that winter_ –

The water was dark.

Ned didn’t feel cold, but something in his brain was telling him that he should, and the strangest shudder went up his spine.

Boyd was in the water. Pale and still. Something was wrapped around him, a thin and dark wire that kept him there.

 _He is bound up in the ties of death_ , Leta had said. Apparently very literally. He wondered how many of her weird metaphors weren’t metaphorical at all, from her viewpoint. _You will need to loosen them, and pull him towards you_.

“Any ideas as to how?”

 _You’ll know the words_.

He did. “I-I’m sorry,” he said. “Boyd, I’m sorry.”

But nothing happened. _Sorry, old friend_ , he heard himself say. Years ago.

 _Because you don’t love him enough_ , something traitorous in his head said. _Because you can’t love him enough_. _You can’t love anything. You’re too selfish_.

And then there was a hand in his. Warm, squeezing his fingers.

Ned gripped Aubrey’s hand and said, “C’mon, you bastard, we’ve got - we’ve got some mistakes to fix. I’m sorry, Boyd, I’m so sorry, old friend, please come home. Come home.”

There was a glow, warm and orange, at the edges of the water. Traveling inward faster and faster as the thin wires around Boyd unwound, and he floated up, and Ned stumbled when there was suddenly a wire tying him to Boyd.

And another. And another. And then they began to glow too, until they burned orange and the light blotted out the water and then Ned was standing in a dim root cellar and Boyd gasped for breath.

* * *

>   _He's alive._
> 
> _He's fucking alive._
> 
> _This is going to complicate_ _everything_.

* * *

 The phone rang.

It took Duck a minute to register, ‘cause he was having kind of a _day_ , but that was definitely the Lodge phone ringing, and Barclay and Jake and Dani were on Distract Agent Stern duty, so he guessed it was probably his job to answer it.

“ _Duck Newton_ ,” a semi-familiar voice said. “ _What the hell did you just do?_ ”

“Ah, hey, Indrid.”

“ _Every single timeline just changed completely_ ,” he could hear Indrid ripping drawings off the wall.

Duck winced. “For the better?”

There was a pause. “ _Duck. You can hear the tone of my voice. I can see the future. We both know that this is not a net good outcome kind of situation._ ” He sounded… not pissed, but distinctly annoyed.

He was very conscious of how closely Zeke was watching him, on edge while Ned was out of custody. “Listen, in our defense, it’s a matter of life and death.”

“ _That’s exactly what I’m afraid of_ ,” said Indrid.

The door opened. Mama stood there, expression grim. “Well,” she said. “It’s done. We raised a man from the dead in my cellar.”

Zeke looked as conflicted about relief vs. exhaustion as Duck felt.

And in his ear, Indrid said, “ _You **what**?_”

Unfortunately, someone else spoke at the same time. And they all turned to look at Agent Stern.

Who had also just said the words, “You _what_?”

“Fuck!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> me, to basil @albaaca at 9pm last Friday:  
> THE MAGIC IN THIS IS BASED ON THREE THINGS.  
> \- BOND ENERGY.  
> \- MY METICULOUS ACADEMIC RESEARCH.  
> \- A RADICAL FACE SONG.
> 
> basil:  
> that is so fucking alinecore
> 
> extra ultra more notes: this fic is dedicated to every single person who thought we'd somehow give up on moschicane and come ship your ship. none of y'all are reading this but you're sure as hell fueling my spite.
> 
> follow @albaaca on tumblr bc he's the king of moschicane
> 
> follow @keplersheetz on tumblr for more soft gay necromancy
> 
> TO BE FUCKING CONTINUED. FUCK CANON. I DON'T CARE.


End file.
